The dark side of flow:a qualitative study of dependence in big wave surfing

Flow has been described within sport psychology as an optimal state underpinning peak performance. However, the consequences of experiencing flow may not always be beneficial. One negative consequence might be that of contributing to dependence on the activity that interacts with, or is associated with, the flow experience. This study explored the dichotomous consequences of flow, using case studies of big wave Surfers. Fifteen elite surfers completed in-depth, semistructured interviews. It seems clear from the results that the surfers experienced positive consequences of flow. However, they also exhibited symptoms of dependence on surfing. It is suggested that there may be air association between the experience of dimensions of flow and the compulsion to engage in an activity. Some specific recommendations for further research into the relationship between flow and exercise dependence are made

Modeling of linear fading memory systems

Motivated by questions of approximate modeling and identification, we consider various classes of linear time-varying bounded-input-bounded output (BIBO) stable fading memory systems and the characterizations are proved. These include fading memory systems in general, almost periodic systems, and asymptotically periodic systems. We also show that the norm and strong convergence coincide for BIBO stable causal fading memory system

The Lisbon Treaty and the British Press a Corpus-Based Contrastive Analysis of Evaluation Resources

Evaluation plays an important role in understanding speakers or writers’ attitude towards an event or their feelings about entities and propositions (Hunston and Thompson 2000). Bednarek (2006) argues that evaluation pervades human behaviour and is linked to our beliefs. She also points out the importance of evaluation in actual discourse as it is impossible for any human being not to judge or be completely objective on a particular event. Given the nature of evaluation to be linked to our beliefs, it can be argued that there is a close relationship between evaluation and metaphor as metaphor analysis ‘‘is often, then, an exploration of the inner subjectivity of speakers – what it is that is unique to their perception of the world – and forms the basis for their response to particular situations and particular ideas’’ (Charteris-Black 2004: 11). Against this background, the present paper starts from the findings of a research project on conceptual metaphor analysis in the British press related to the Lisbon Treaty debate and focuses on the evaluative lexis that has often been found to collocate or co-occur with the linguistic expressions of the conceptual conflict and movement metaphors analysed. The evaluative adjectives we are particularly interested in are bullying, desperate, reluctant, arrogant, frightening, surprised, insistent. The evaluative verbs that we intend to explore are admit, blast, praise. However, all the other evaluative terms that might come up to light and have a significant role in the analysis of the event will be taken into account. The aim of this paper is to explore, through the methodology of Corpus Linguistics, how the British press uses the evaluative resources to construe the event of ratification and to what extent it presents a similar description or attributes similar roles to the European leaders and uses both metaphors and evaluation to create a coherent text and image of the ratification issue

Accountability for public sector it projects and the senior responsible owner: a theoretical background and research agenda

The history of public sector IT capital projects is littered with examples of projects that have been delivered late, or have exceeded their budgets, or have proved unsuitable for their intended use. Such projects include the computerised passport processing system, the National Insurance Recording System and the Libra project (Comptroller and Auditor General, 1999,2001, 2003). Other projects such as the Benefits Card Payment project (Comptroller and Auditor General, 2000) have been cancelled prior to completion after the expenditure of significant sums of public money, having made little progress over an extended period of time. These project failures and their consequent negative impacts on the delivery of public services have been widely reported in an almost continuous stream of newspaper headlines. This succession of revelations about the problems of public sector IT capital projects has been accompanied by high levels of political and public concerns that the benefits of the projects are lost and that large sums of public money are being wasted. In the first part of the paper we argue that there has been a historical focus on institutional accountability at the expense of research into individual accountability. We explore how and why the traditional doctrine of civil servant accountability has declined, with a resultant increased emphasis on both the accountability of civil servants and on managerial performance. We examine the effects of managerialism on the changing subject of civil servant accountability and on the emergence of the SRO role. We formalize our arguments by developing two propositions that illustrate the basic flaws in the SRO concept that arise from subjective and cognitive aspects of understanding. In the second part of the paper we explore the potential and limitations of five different approaches to the study of SRO accountability that might take into account its cognitive and subjective components. We conclude that one of the five - experientialism, or phenomenography - offers to overcome the limitations of the others. We present three further theoretical propositions using phenomenographic principles to illustrate the argument for the existence of a range of understandings of SRO accountability. We conclude that the subjective and cognitive limitations outlined open the way for further research into the field of accountability and the management of IT projects across the public sector.School of Managemen

Input-output stabilization of linear systems on Z

A formal framework is set up for the discussion of generalized autoregressive with external input models of the form Ay__Bu, where A and B are linear operators, with the main emphasis being on signal spaces consisting of bounded sequences parametrized by the integers. Different notions of stability are explored, and topological notions such as the idea of a closed system are linked with questions of stabilizability in this very general context. Various problems inherent in using Z as the time axis are analyzed in this operatorial framework

Worst-case analysis of identification - BIBO robustness for closed loop data

This paper deals with the worst-case analysis of identification of linear shift-invariant (possibly) infinite-dimensional systems. A necessary and sufficient input richness condition for the existence of robustly convergent identification algorithms in l1 is given. A closed-loop identification setting is studied to cover both stable and unstable (but BIBO stabilizable) systems. Identification (or modeling) error is then measured by distance functions which lead to the weakest convergence notions for systems such that closed-loop stability, in the sense of BIBO stability, is a robust property. Worst-case modeling error bounds in several distance functions are include

Common hypercyclic vectors for families of operators

We provide a criterion for the existence of a residual set of common hypercyclic vectors for an uncountable family of hypercyclic operators which is based on a previous one given by Costakis and Sambarino. As an application, we get common hypercyclic vectors for a particular family of hypercyclic scalar multiples of the adjoint of a multiplier in the Hardy space, generalizing recent results by Abakumov and Gordon and also Bayart. The criterion is applied to other specific families of operators

Multivariable approximate Carleman-type theorems for complex measures

We prove a multivariable approximate Carleman theorem on the determination of complex measures on ${\mathbb{R}}^n$ and ${\mathbb{R}}^n_+$ by their moments. This is achieved by means of a multivariable Denjoy--Carleman maximum principle for quasi-analytic functions of several variables. As an application, we obtain a discrete Phragm\'{e}n--Lindel\"{o}f-type theorem for analytic functions on ${\mathbb{C}}_+^n$.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009117906000000377 in the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org